Twilight Zone Comics (1963)

Gold Key published four Twilight Zone issues in 1963. 

Let's have a look at 'em.

Issue 2 opens with "The Lost Colonie," wherein a telephone lineman from 1962 discovers (you guessed it) a lost colony from 1662 while working underground. The people in the past built their underground city to "escape Peter Stuyvesant, the tyrant of Nieuw Amsterdam." The lineman uses his flashlight to bedazzle the people of the past and escapes by retracing his steps back to the hole punctured in the timestream, a la "All Our Yesterdays."

Serling, always with the cheery suggestions.

The second story is the weakest of the three, but it's still fun. (More or less how I feel about every one of these stories in issues 2- 5). An old timer has a silver watch given to him by General Custer, which allows him to time travel. 

There's more, but 'nuff said. ("One side, ya stomachlobbers - Irish buggy baby comin' through!" and other Old-Timey-49-er dialogue.)

The third story is classic TZ: TOS fare. A man wakes up in spacesuit with apparent amnesia after a rocket crash. He looks for his friends and instead discovers three apelike creatures. They are his friends, transformed by the rays of Phobos - which some believe to be an artificial satellite constructed for this purpose - into creatures capable of surviving on Mars. (It really is remarkable how many times this theme comes around in science-fiction, on Mars especially.) He refuses to live as some damn ape-man and tears off his suit to let the atmosphere kill him. Instead, he wakes up in a hospital bed, on Earth, the first man to complete one hundred successful orbits. As such, he has been selected to lead the mission to Mars. He recognizes his new crewmates as the apes from his dream, and further - 

Fun stuff. All stories written by Leo "the Dorf" Dorfman and illustrated by Giovanni Ticci and Alberto Giolitti, all of whom has prolific Silver Age profiles in the industry.
 
Issue 3 features art by fellow Silver Age (and beyond) legends Alex Toth and Mike Sekowsky. The writing credits are to the best of my knowledge unknown. The issue opens with:

Another one that would have fit right into the Original Series's imdb. A WW2 soldier is blasted into the past by a tremendous explosion and rescued by a "special squadron." They outfit and arm him but seem odd to him, somehow. When they come across a German position that has a squad pinned down, they form a bayonet charge and take them out, then disappear. 

Naturally they're the Lost Squadron of this particular battlefield, always willing to lend a hand to a doughboy separated from his squad.

Next up is "Birds of a Feather," another one where you can more or less guess the ironic ending in store from the first couple of panels. There is, however, a tad more to the story. 

I enjoyed this one, particularly the art.

The last story is the one from the cover, "The Queen Is Dead - Long Live the Queen." 

Another fun one.

Spoiler alert:

This last one has a little bit in common with Season 5's "Queen of the Nile", which also aired in 1964. I don't know if such a thing was coordinated - probably not.

Onto issue 4, which could be the best of the '63 offerings. (More art by Sekowsky and Toth, and stories by Paul S. Newman. Possibly some other writers, too - it can be tricky tracking down Gold Key writer info.) The first story, "The Secret of the Key" is another time travel affair. A man in Paris overhears a shopkeeper telling a customer that he has a gold key that is not for sale at any price. Intrigued, the man steals the key, and when chased by the gendarmes, he uses it on a door that appears in the middle of a brick wall. (Like one does.) He materializes in Revolutionary France where he is first chased by the mob, then ends up (!) in the private chambers of Marie Antoinette. (That's about as probable as hopping the White House fence to evade some ruffians and sneaking in the Oval Office bathroom window or something, but hey.) The queen mistakes him for her husband, then uses his resemblance to her advantage. 

After drugging him, she and Louis XVI swap the stranger for the king, and it is the stranger who makes his date with Madame Guillotine at the Place de la Concorde.

I basically will watch or read anything set during the French Revolution, so maybe I find this one a little more fascinating than it deserves. (Sidenote - is it just me or are people totally uninterested in the French Revolution? Seems un-American to me, as counter-inuitive as that might sound on the face of it. One revolution reflected the other.) It feels like it should be a Night Gallery segment. I have that reaction to a lot of Gold Key TZs, actually.

The next story brought to mind "Black Leather Jackets" from the series. A reporter is sent to cover the opening of a hot new club, which he does, but upon arrival discovers it's all a front for an alien takeover. 

A brief morality tale ("The Captive") is next. This one is actually pretty cool despite being seemingly Frankenstein'd from a half-dozen other Twilight Zone stories.

"Local jerk receives supernaturally ironic comeuppance."

Issue 4 comes to a close with:

You have to admire any plot that follows a progression like this: a US Navy pilot crashes into the Pacific during WW2. He awakens in a strange chamber attended by a beautiful woman, who reveals that he is now a guest in the underwater kingdom of King Neptune. He refuses to stay and must earn his freedom by passing King Neptune's gauntlet - a test of strength against the most fearsome creatures at his disposal.

He does and wakes up in the sick bay of a US transport, his seaweed headband admired by the officers in charge. He claims to not remember anything while offering a silent prayer of thanks to Trina, the lady-fish who nursed him to health. 

If Issue 4 isn't the best of the '63 TZs, it has to be issue 5. (Written by Leo Dorfman, art by Mike Sekowsky, Tom Gill, and Frank Thorne.) The cover story was memorably summarized in the comments section last time by Friend of the Omnibus ChrisC. He was going from memory, though, and a few of the details turned out to be (only slightly) different. Race Corey (what a name!) and Anson are wanted thieves holing up in the Corey Family mansion, long since abandoned and dilapidated. The family legend is that an ancestor made a fortune as a smuggler during the War Between the States and that the money is hidden somewhere on the property. That night, Race has a dream where his ancestor shows him where to find it. The next day, lo and behold - there it is! Right where the ghost said it would be. 

It's all Confederate currency, but also included are the currency plates with which the pair can reproduce authentic dinero for Civil War buffs and currency collectors.

Alas, while hiding out as wagon-wheel bumpkins after accidentally murdering one of their customers, they drift into a remote and misty valley where they unknowingly drift back through time. They are set upon by a Confederate patrol, who quickly discovers the currency plates in their possession and has them executed by a firing squad.

Time traveling to the Confederacy almost never works.

The other stories are each a hoot. The shortest is "The Shadow of Fate," which is your standard ghost-saves-the-Queen-of-England-from-fiery-train-wreck tale. "The Legacy of Hans Burkel" is the story of the title character, a bad luck sailor on a Nazi U-Boat of the damned.

Fantastic Sekowsky art.

And lastly, there's "Poor Little Sylvester." Sylvester is an orphan and heir to a great fortune. The stipulations of his inheritance call for him to share it with any caretaker who safely sees him to adulthood and provides him with anything his heart desires along the way. 

Sylvester is interested in everything, which leads to a house full of clutter for the aunt and uncle looking after him.

They're happy to go along with his whims until he orders the Space Warp Converter from the Sugar Globs Company.

Sylvester activates the Converter but can't get it to work. After tinkering with it, though, he manages to send one of his aunt's lamps to Altair-4 into deep space. 

When they threaten to abandon Sylvester and empty the house of all valuables for their troubles, Sylvester takes matters into his own hands.

You've got to wonder - did Stephen King see this comic? Did it sit like a piece of sea grit in the clamshell of his imagination, one day to turn into the pearl of David and Hilly Brown from The Tommyknockers? The stories are different enough - no one's suggesting he plagiarized it or anything silly. Just wondering if King - a comics fan and familiar enough with the Twilight Zone - ever came across this story back in the day and filed the idea away for later.

Keys to Knowledge this time around include entertaining asides on : The Sea (Island Life and Coral Fish), Roads and Vehicles (Primitive Transportation the Roman road), Electricity, and Encryption and Archaeology.     

 

See you next time. 

The Twilight Zone: The Encounter

Next up:

"The Encounter" Season 5, Episode 31 (1964)

"Two men alone in an attic: a young Japanese-American and a seasoned veteran of yesterday's war. It's twenty odd years since Pearl Harbor, but two ancient opponents are moving into position for a battle in an attic crammed with skeletons, souvenirs, mementos, old uniforms, and rusted medals. Ghosts from the dim regions of the past... that will lead us... into the Twilight Zone."

"The Encounter" aired only a single time on May 1st, 1964 and then not again until January 1st, 2016. Let's walk through the plot and see why that was.

Fenton is a WW2 combat vet who's fallen on hard times. Lost his job, lost his wife, unhealthy, and drinking too much. He's up in the attic, taking stock of the physical clutter of his life. He finds a samurai sword and hurls it angrily against the wall. 

Arthur is an American-born child of Japanese immigrants who at age 4 was a personal witness to Pearl Harbor. He too is out of work and has shown up at Fenton's house on a tip from his neighbor that Fenton might be looking for some gardening work.

Fenton agrees and invites the young man up to the attic for a beer. Not wanting to be impolite to his new employer, Arthur accepts.

After needling Arthur about his Anglicized name, Arthur responds that he's just as American as anyone but admits his birthname was Taro, he just changed it to Arthur. Fenton alternates between calling him Arthur, Taro, Takamori, and "boy," which as intended provokes Arthur.

Arthur begins to suspect that Fenton might be a dangerous type when he shows him the sword.

Arthur pretends not to be able to read Japanese, but when Fenton leaves to get more beer, he holds the blade aloft and says to himself (almost astonished) "I'm going to kill him... I'm going to kill him. Why?"

When Fenton returns he says he had the inscription translated on the spot, when he took it off a dead Japanese officer. The words mean "The Sword Will Avenge Me." And the sword seems to influence both men as they drink their beer. Arthur receives a flash of psychic insight - Fenton didn't find the sword; he killed the officer who tried to surrender - and Fenton needles Arthur into admitting his father was actually spying for the Japanese. ("He signaled the planes; he told them where to drop their bombs.")

They continue to have flare-ups that almost spill over into violence, the sword all the while providing them both with "Day of the Dove"-style hallucinations and adrenaline. Fenton says he was just following orders. But then he loses it altogether: ("I've been pushed and pulled this way and that way until I hate everybody! You dirty little Jap!") They struggle, and the sword, sharp-end-out, becomes wedged in the table. Fenton slips and impales himself on it. Convinced the sword is possessed, Arthur screams "Banzai!" and leaps through the window to his death.

Moments later, as Rod delivers his wrap-up, the door to the attic, presumed jammed, slowly opens on its own.

"Two men in an attic, locked in mortal embrace. Their common bond, and their common enemy: guilt. A disease all too prevalent amongst men both in and out

...of The Twilight Zone."

I like "locked in mortal embrace." I guess it's a common enough expression, or something not created for this episode. I like it, though. You are attached to what you attack. Survival must cancel programming. That's it, Ruk! Logic! You can't! protect! someone who's trying! to destroy you!

Sorry, ahem - "What Are Little Girls Made Of" hiccup there. But the principle stands. It's a dark little tale about the damage war inflicts on the humans who wage it against a backdrop of the ephemeral reasons for waging it. As Fenton points out several times, he got decorations for treating the Japs the way he was told to: as animals. Now he's being told by the same government to "buy their damn transistors" and that they're "an ancient, cultured people," all while he's seen his own life and livelihood post-war gone to pot. 

And what are we to make of the ending? Fenton commits a kind of accidental seppuko (which is of course a bastardization, or a shadowy reflection perhaps, of the actual ritual, as near as I can tell; what Fenton accomplishes is more what they call suicide-by-cop), and then Arthur's fatal defenestration? (Raising the number of Twilight Zone episodes that end this way to at least two, the other being "Perchance to Dream." And I bet there are more.) 

Japanese-Americans complained about the plot twist of Arthur's Dad being a mole for Imperial Japan. There were a handful of sleeper agents Japan had in Hawaii and elsewhere but overwhelmingly, the idea that Japanese-Americans were a fifth column was wartime propaganda and contributed in no small part to the internment of thousands of American citizens. This subtext would of course be discouraged by advertisers of the era - although there are at least a few contemporaneous shows that mentioned both the moral ambiguity of the Japanese internment and the domestic alienation of the soldier returned home to patronize his country's former enemy - and mainly it's just a buzzcrush of an episode. At a time when LBJ was building up American troop presence in Vietnam, perhaps it was felt a Twilight Zone reminder of the wounds leftover from the country's last Asian military adventure was imprudent.

All of that works pretty well. The magic sword element, though, doesn't.

We're meant to believe that these two lonely and alienated individuals are driven to the end they are by the Twilight-Zone-y vibrations of the samurai blade, with its curse/inscription. But, neither the dialogue nor the way things are staged/ paced really re-enforces that all that well. If this was Alfred Hitchcock Presents, for example, where a supernatural element is not automatically assumed, I doubt anyone would think there was anything magical going on. So, this element could have been cleared up a little.

Good performances from the leads:

Went on to do something-or-other-somewhere. And

Neville Brand was a highly-decorated WW2 vet who got his start in 1950's film noir classic D.O.A. As mentioned at that link, he parlayed his primitive visage and simmering rage into a successful film career of nut-jobs, heavies and he-men. Here he does good work emphasizing the ugly aspects of Fenton's character - namely his racism, alcoholism, and alienation - while also inhabiting the role enough where one recognizes the war hero defeated by elements and circumstances so far beyond his control as to make him surprisingly sympathetic. ("I'm not afraid of dying so much as living.")

He reminded me of some of my old customers at the VFW and not in a comfortable way. Which I guess shouldn't be surprising, since Brand himself was a veteran of a foreign war; he knew of whom he spoke and portrays here. 

Some (especially in 2016) might object to my drawing equivalence between them - Fenton is a racist; Arthur is a victim of racism. But it is not me who is drawing said equivalence; it's the writer, Goldsmith. That parallel is what this story is all about. These are American men who were both killed in WW2, in different ways, by the same side (the USA), just the effect was delayed for 19 years.

Director Robert Butler was a constantly-employed director, writer, consultant, and producer in four separate decades, but he's most commonly associated (at least in the hearts and minds of Star Trek fans) as the guy who directed "The Cage." Writer Martin Goldsmith was perhaps best known for his work in film noir, including Detour, covered elsewhere in these pages.

All in all, I'd recommend Hell in the Pacific over this one for the same theme, but perhaps that's not the best one-to-one-comparison. It's a powerful episode and very worthwhile dramatic terrain.

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